Many Wingnuts have noticed some cool eastereggs in the latest promotional video from Roberts Space Industries. The "Origin Jumpworks" 300 Series commercial features a fighter jet zooming over a landscape that appears strikingly similar to the Vespus scene in the Wing Commander 3 intro. There's also a screen in the ship's cabin that displays a classic Wing Commander briefing nav map. You can check out the full video here.

After Cloud Imperium's recent 24-hour telethon and website relaunch, their crowdfunding tally stands at $11.9 million. This puts the team a million and a half dollars past the Pebble Smartwatch, which previously held the record for most successful pledge campaign. Chris Roberts has made the rounds again and says he can fully design a digital spaceraft for between $35,000 and $150,000 real world dollars!

Most all Wing Commander fans are very familiar with the submerged Concordia scene that kicks off "The Heart of the Tiger." But have you seen the pre-release screenshot? Archive material that we've collected includes this intriguing image dated July 6, 1994. Compared to the final footage in the game, the image is sharp and in high resolution. It includes Arrows instead of Hellcats, the rocks are slightly different and the characters' shadows have not been inserted. It's not uncommon for ships that are planned for a scene to change before the final cut, but we don't often get to visually compare them!

We told you it was a famous scene! Fans have commemorated it in different ways over the years. Frostytheplebe once baked a cake in the shape of the Concordia wreckage. It even had candles lit in place of the onboard fires! Wingnuts also recalled this setup when the USS Oriskany was intentionally sunk in 2006, and Dundradal used sinking carriers as the subject for his Inglorious Losses article. Tolwyn once put together a wallpaper that evoked memories of Vespus but instead featured a downed Hellcat scouted by Ekapshi fighters. Not every recollection even includes a crash landing however. Klavs has put together several wallpaper images that illustrate what the ship may have looked like on its way down into the atmosphere. It's even been the subject of Dahan's fan fiction. We've never gotten to actually fly a mission that sees everything go down, but capi is currently building an RPG campaign that puts you into the rearguard action that precipitated it all! And as for that last one from HotT, no comment...

Recent Updates

Original Rapier Ready for Duty

If you've been closely following DefianceIndustries' fleet of WC1-era ships and thought something was missing, you're right! The Confed lineup now has its star medium fighter, the Rapier. Klavs' Rapier has some serious competition now! (2018-11-18)

Roberts Space Industries Passes Go, Collects $200 Million

Chris Roberts announced today that proceeds towards Star Citizen and Squadron 42 have now surpassed $200 million. This incredible milestone comes a bit over six years since the project launched and comes from 2.1 million different gamers in 171 countries. (2018-11-17)

Watch the French Resistance Achieve Victory Against the Kilrathi

DocteurJ is back with another extensive stream and commentary on the Wing Commander series. In this episode, he's flying the final mission of Wing Commander 3 to cap off his summertime playthrough of the game. As you're already aware if you skipped ahead and pressed play, DocteurJ is helping make sure Wing Commander fandom lives on in the French gaming community. (2018-11-16)

Japanese Advertisements Highlight Intriguing Ports

Here's a couple of really cool Japanese advertisements that LOAF recently came across. As is common in the country, they're chock full of text and liberal with the exclamation marks. The first is a small embedded ad for the Mega CD port of Wing Commander 1, which was the only version that got full speech as it was transferred to the disc-based format. (2018-11-15)

Art Portfolio One Step Closer to Production

Mike Winterbauer reports that he's finished putting together the dedication page in his Wing Commander Art Portfolio with all of the project backers who pledged at the appropriate $25+ Book threshold. For a limited time between now and when the material soon goes to print, he's put out a call for anyone who missed the end of the campaign and wanted to upgrade to be included. If so, send Mike a message. (2018-11-14)